Review of Airplane! (1980) by Andreas C — 16 Jun 2013

Back in the days before the Wayans brothers began to prove that quality cinematic farce may be dead, there was a revolution in spoof movies, and it all started with Airplane. What the Zucker brothers created was truly brilliant. It had jokes that were perfect for the time, and yet was also loaded with timeless humor that continues to entertain young generations. They targeted the disaster B-movies like Zero Hour which had their own unintentional humor, and just ramped up the ridiculous. Amazingly they actually make a compelling story inside this series of insane events, by ripping off the outline of Zero Hour, even to the point of simulating some of the same camerawork.

The true genius of this movie is the casting. The directors brilliantly selected a lineup of great dramatic actors. The setup was simple. The actors would play the entire film straight, as though men wearing 2 pairs of sunglasses and random spears flying into the wall were perfectly normal. So the ridiculous unfolds around them, and creates a new layer of humor as the actors play it as though this stuff happens every day. Particularly remarkable are actors like Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and Leslie Nielsen who had made their careers acting in totally dramatic television and films. Leslie Nielsen even spun this design of comedy into a series of spoof TV shows and movies.

I love this film for bringing a fresh style to farce on the big screen, but there are a couple reasons that I don't consider it one of my favorite films. First and foremost, they sometimes go a little too low-brow with the humor. Cheap sex jokes and random nudity don't exactly suit my personal sense of humor. The other problem is that the humor is a very acquired taste. It seems that this movie draws a strong love-it-or-hate-it reaction. I'm definitely in the love-it camp, but sometimes it's a struggle to find someone to watch and laugh with me. However, even if I end up watching by myself, this classic comedy is one of those films that I get sucked into and watch until the end every time I catch it on TV.